Ew! Cooties! I think you'd have to trawl through a lot of American movies to understand what cooties are, and why they pose such a danger to civilisation as we know it.

Take your lovable, friendly liver. You may have abused it time and time again over the years with a series of fermented vegetable drinks but it still loves you enough to be your staunch defender in times of trouble.

With big, bold and colourful graphics, Cooties is aimed squarely at younger players - so if you're the sort of extremely trusting parent who lets their children loose on their favourite Apple device, then it's certainly the sort of game that should prove a hit with youngsters.

Extremely simple and stripped-down gameplay ramps up in difficulty depending on what level of expertise you choose at the start of the game (tip: unless you're a banana-fingered no-hoper, or under the age of four, don't pick "Kid level").

Kicking off with Louie the Liver, the happy little urine-filter must see off wave after wave of germs. Killing germs is as easy as tapping them as soon as they appear on the screen. If they make contact with Louie, he'll lose a bit of health. You get 3 hearts to start with, and you can repeatedly tap Louie (or the other internal organs in the various game levels) to restore his energy.

Germ attacks begin to become more frequent, and at the higher difficulty levels the game becomes a frenetic race to stave off the nasty germs while continually restoring energy.

Later, Albert the Evil Appendix recruits trickier germs and bacteria to his cause - and this is where the game starts to become like the digital equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your stomach at the same time. Some germs can be destroyed by tapping, some need to be swiped and though it's fairly easy to begin with, once the game's speed and attack frequencies ramp up, it becomes quite tricky and addictive seeing how long you can last for before Louie Liver, Bob Brain or Harvey the Heart succumb to Albert's evil forces.

The game features Crystal / Game Centre game network support, so you can measure your successes against other players worldwide. For 59pit's fairly cheap and disposable gaming, and definitely seems to be pitched at younger audiences. Not really my cup of tea, but if you're in the market for a spot of germ warfare it could be the tonic you're looking for.

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